This doesn't appear to be a very interesting list.
The cantata is nice, especially if it can be twisted with 32 (which I presume it can), although it means
that a Bard will have no time to take a break.
The DD is supposed to be a spell interrupt also, which I suppose is good, but it claims to have a 12
second recast. And the 3 second cast makes any spell interrupts a crap shoot in any case. Perhaps the
8th song against unmezzable, uncharmable MOBs, but I doubt I'd use it.
The group damage shield is pretty wussy. Assuming that it doesn't pulse back on every tick (which is they
way their game engine seems to work), once it's down it's down, so we either have to keep singing this one
song, or it does a piddly 20 points of health for each person who gets hit. Again, there are better
choices.
I doubt that mana drain is useful in anything but PVP. If the AE mana drain breaks mez (which I assume it
does), it better have a very low taunt factor or I'll never use it.
These are all assumptions based on observations of the way things currently work are are currently
balanced. Maybe these will be swell. We can only hope.
The damage shield is a useful illustration of the problem Verant has balancing this class. If we assume
that every member of the party is taking damage constantly, then this song saves 120 points of health per
tick. That's pretty nice. The problem is that this almost never happens. I suppose if you had an
all-melee group with no dispell fighting something that had a damage shield up, this would be nice.
Otherwise, it's actual utility is vastly less than its maximum potential.
Kenross Cantoforjado, 54 songs, Innoruuk
"Mott, Mike J." wrote:
> I just got the following from EQ Casters Realm regarding new bard songs for
> the Velious expansion. The link is:
>
> http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/velious.asp
>
> The songs are:
>
> Cantana of Soothing Party: Heal, Mana, and Stamina Regeneration 34
> Melody of Ervaj Area Effect Mana Drain (Max: 225) 49
> Shield of Song Group Damage Absorption (Max: 20 per tick) 50
> Occlusion of Sound Single Target Magic Based Direct Damage (Max: 42) 55.
> Composition of Ervaj Drain Mana From Target (Max: 350) 60.